How to make the switch from Android dev to full-stack dev?

Amazon
xeiabxhxi

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xeiabxhxi
Jan 23 14 Comments

Hi all. I graduated college back in 2018 and for 75% of my career since then I have been doing Android development. I’ve recently come to terms that I do not want to consider pursuing it further, and would be much happier doing full-stack development or even primarily backend.

I’m really struggling with attempting to make the switch as I have little to no system design experience. I’ve tried watching the videos and reading the documents about system design concepts, but even with practice it feels like I would be regurgitating information in interviews without having real world experience in these topics and I wouldn’t know how to answer follow up questions on any of them.

I’m trying to switch internally at Amazon (as an L5/SDE II), and even then the informal loops typically end after the team asks for system design artifacts and I have nothing substantial to provide.

Curious to hear from folks who have been in my shoes and how you got unstuck from a specific niche? Whether it be Android like myself, iOS or another specification.

#engineering #software #swe #interview #career

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TOP 14 Comments
  • Amazon
    amazon 🤡

    Go to company page Amazon

    amazon 🤡
    You should try to apply for backend Java positions and then switch to the fullstack if your future team allows you to build frontend component of projects.
    Jan 23 4
    • Amazon
      xeiabxhxi

      Go to company page Amazon

      xeiabxhxi
      OP
      I have some but they’re very minimal. The main project that got me promoted had NO design doc or review before implementation started. Sounds awful practice I know, but in that team we just had no concept of standard design reviews and it was kind of a free reign team. As an L4 I just went with it. But now it’s biting me in rear since even after getting promoted I haven’t been getting handed many substantial projects that would call for a design doc worthy of sharing.
      Jan 23
    • Amazon
      amazon 🤡

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      amazon 🤡
      im jealous. I needed to write so many design docs only to get promoted... as a fullstack. If I were you, I would use your SDE 2 to interview outside
      Jan 23
  • Twitter / Eng
    FleetFlot

    Go to company page Twitter Eng

    PRE
    Amazon
    FleetFlot
    To be fair, Mobile development is absolutely miserable at Amazon and not indicative of normal mobile dev. Even so, plenty of people do jump to full stack or backend. A lot of my former coworkers (at Amazon) did exactly that and went fine for them
    Jan 23 3
    • Twitter / Eng
      FleetFlot

      Go to company page Twitter Eng

      PRE
      Amazon
      FleetFlot
      I think every person I can think of switched internally first. Then since quite a few went to other companies as backend. Definitely easier to ramp up on new tech internally since you'd at least be familiar with Brazil and various other tooling
      Jan 23
    • Amazon
      xeiabxhxi

      Go to company page Amazon

      xeiabxhxi
      OP
      Got it. And yeah that was my thought process. I’ll just keep pushing for some team to give me a chance to prove myself and even take a less-than-exciting product if I have to, just to get the experience.
      Jan 23
  • Dude trust me you want to work on android, I’ve done both. Apps are better. With full stack you normally are on call and it’s much more stressful. Having a release schedule (depending on what you are working on) is really nice.
    Jan 23 3
    • Amazon
      xeiabxhxi

      Go to company page Amazon

      xeiabxhxi
      OP
      Android has its downsides too: constantly worry about memory issues, performance concerns, app versioning, specific android OS issues (or manufactures), debugging vague android internal stack traces, gradle issues, slow build times, etc
      Jan 23
    • Meta
      obzN12

      Go to company page Meta

      obzN12
      If you think you do not need to care about all of this on backend I have really bad news for you.
      Jan 23
  • New
    tHnC43

    New

    tHnC43
    Funny. I’m in the exact opposite boat. Wanting to switch from full stack to Android. One option might be a smaller firm. For instance, the place I currently work is currently looking for an app developer but 90% of our work is actually backend work so our app developers end up doing a fair amount of api work as well.
    Jan 23 0